---
title: "Fact of the Week: Low-Skilled Workers Earn 20 Percent More at Highly Innovative Firms"
summary: |-
  It is commonly assumed that the wealth and other benefits that highly innovative firms produce are concentrated among high-skilled workers, since they are the ones who are most likely to be innovating. But a new study casts doubt on this presumption, using matched employee-employer data from the United Kingdom.
date: "2020-04-13"
issues: ["Skills and Future of Work"]
authors: ["Caleb Foote"]
content_type: "Blogs"
canonical_url: "https://itif.org/publications/2020/04/13/fact-week-low-skilled-workers-earn-20-percent-more-highly-innovative-firms/"
---

# Fact of the Week: Low-Skilled Workers Earn 20 Percent More at Highly Innovative Firms

**Source:** Philippe Aghion, et al., “**[The innovation premium to soft skills in low-skilled occupations](http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/103452/1/dp1665.pdf?mc_cid=2cd0b7d45c&mc_eid=%5bUNIQID%5d)**,” CEP Discussion Paper No 1665, December 2019.

**Commentary**: It is commonly assumed that the wealth and other benefits that highly innovative firms produce are concentrated among high-skilled workers, since they are the ones who are most likely to be innovating. But a new study casts doubt on this presumption, using matched employee-employer data from the United Kingdom. Controlling for firm and employee characteristics, it finds that low-skilled workers earn 20 percent more at firms with high R&D intensity, compared to firms that do not conduct significant R&D.

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*Source: Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)*
*URL: https://itif.org/publications/2020/04/13/fact-week-low-skilled-workers-earn-20-percent-more-highly-innovative-firms/*